Donora Coal Fog of 1948

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Transcript of Donora Coal Fog of 1948

Results There were no clean up efforts but eventually the pollutants were eventually washed away by the rain, while the fire department went door to door to homes giving clean oxygen to breathe.

As a result of this disaster, the clean air movement began and the Clean Air Act of 1970 was enacted. Causes Pollutants emitted from the zinc mill became trapped by the stagnant air in the atmosphere causing temperature inversion.

Odd weather patterns and the geographic area of Donora made the pollutants in the atmosphere remain near the ground, where people breathed them in causing most of the deaths. Hess, David. "Donora Smog of 1948." Donora Smog of 1948. Donora Fire Company, 2007. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://www.donora.fire-dept.net/1948smog.htm>.

Miller, Tyler. Environmental Science: Working with the Earth / Eleventh Edition. Belmont, California: Thomson Corporation, 2006. Print. Sources The 2009 novel Don't Kill the Messenger by Joel Pierson features a fictional town, Wyandotte, Pennsylvania, which became a ghost town after a smog incident, based on the Donora Smog.[citation needed] An hour-long documentary "Rumor of Blue Sky" produced by Andrew Maietta and Janet Whitney aired on WQED-TV in April 2009. The film features archival images and interviews with survivors of the environmental tragedy. The Weather Channel produced an episode of "When Weather Changed History", on the Donora smog incident. Donora Smog MuseumNovel titled "After the fog" by Kathleen Shoop The issue of pollutants getting into are air is still an issue today. Factories all over the world still let there harmful waste gasses into the atmosphere polluting it. Temperature Inversion Temperature inversion is when cool, dense air is trapped under a layer of warm, less dense air, preventing air currents from flowing upward.

When temperature inversion, like it was during the smog, is prolonged the air pollution begins to build up to harmful levels in the trapped layer. This trapped layer gets stuck near the ground and mixes with the air above it. This is what happened during the smog ad was the cause of most of the deaths and illnesses. Smog Smog is a type of air pollution; the word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century as a portmanteau of the words smoke and fog to refer to smoky fog.[1] The word was then intended to refer to what was sometimes known as pea soup fog, a familiar and serious problem in London from the 19th century to the mid 20th century. Smog is a serious problem in many cities and continues to harm human health. Ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide are especially harmful for senior citizens, children, and people with heart and lung conditions such as emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma. It can inflame breathing passages, decrease the lungs' working capacity, cause shortness of breath, pain when inhaling deeply, wheezing, and coughing. It can cause eye and nose irritation and it dries out the protective membranes of the nose and throat and interferes with the body's ability to fight infection, increasing susceptibility to illness.